Chicago Bears: Dissecting what can work for Matt Nagy’s offense in 2020

The Chicago Bears can do better on offense and it doesn’t have to be through the air.

The Chicago Bears have been historically a defensive team. A football team that has not found its stride with quarterback play. I wrote a piece on the history of the Chicago Bears here if you want to read more on how it has been.

Not all of those teams were lousy football teams. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the Chicago Bears used a combination of running the ball and defense to be successful. The same can be said for the 1950s to the 1960s. The NFL has changed a lot over the years and has evolved into a passing league.

The Chicago Bears have tried to follow suit under coach Marc Trestman and now head coach Matt Nagy. Coach Trestman’s passing offense in 2013 was well ahead of the opposing teams he faced when he outscored them with 32 passing touchdowns to 25. Trestman’s passing offense had 4,281 yards compared to 3,730 and limited interceptions of 13 compared to 19.

Sometimes being explosive through the air isn’t a good thing. On November 19th, 2018, the Chiefs and Rams got into a scoring match with over 100 points combined that game. The quarterbacks combined for 10 passing touchdowns and over 890 yards passing. The running backs rushing yards combined was barley 1/4 of Jared Goff’s passing yards. What is very exciting to the fans, wasn’t a successful way to secure the win for the Chiefs.

The Chicago Bears beat the Rams the way they have been historically excellent by playing defense and running the ball. Goff had 44 pass attempts for 180 yards and four interceptions while Jordan Howard rushed 19 times for 101 yards. Tarik Cohen added another 69 yards on nine carries. There is a reason why this is important to remember.